This morning I took Joe and Pete to 7:00 Mass and came home full of ideas about what I was going to get done today. Minutes after I got home, I was surprised by a sudden visual disturbance: the size of a big floater, but flashing. I was worried that it was a retinal detachment, but Elwood said, "I hope you're not getting a migraine." It grew bigger and bigger until it ate up a huge swath of my visual field, like this but longer and fatter. It didn't change when I winked or closed my eyes, so I figured it was a brain thing and not an eye thing. I tried to consult Dr. Google but it was hard to read. I said to my husband, "I am feeling distress disproportionate to what is actually going on here." (I hate it when my body does surprising things.)
"This," I said, "is weird timing given that the first reading was from Tobit today. At least no birds pooped in my eyes." I asked St. Rafael to pray for me. I drank a cup of coffee. I asked Elwood to dig up that beautiful Cardinal Newman quote that says "my sickness may serve him." The scintillating scotoma shrank and then disappeared, leaving me feeling unexpectedly fatigued and wobbly for a chunk of the day.
In Mass I had been reflecting on unexpected connections. I was remembering feeling really stressed about money during my first year in the doctoral program. I didn't know that the job I felt compelled to seek would not only ease my short-term financial concerns. It would provide me with illustrations that my future students would benefit from. It would build a friendly relationship between my boss and me, leading to the grant proposal I submitted this spring. Whether or not it is funded, the proposal will advance my tenure case. In those weeks when my bank balance had me in a tizzy, God had a plan stretching years into the future.
I've been thinking about that all day. I cannot see God's purposes, but I believe he is purposeful. Perhaps one of the people I prayed for in my unexpectedly quiet day needed those prayers more than I knew. Perhaps I'll think back on this day years from now and say, "Oh, I'm glad I know what a scintillating scotoma is because ____." I've had the Carrie Newcomer song Threads in my head: joined to one another by invisible threads.
Recent Comments